Spotlight on Christine Jordan and her 30 for 30!

NAPOWRIMO - National Poetry Writing Month, 2021, the Los Angeles Poet Society shared a poetry prompt calendar for a poem a day, often referred to writing 30 for 30. 30 poems for 30 days in the month of April. Poet Christine Jordan took upon the challenge, creating an exquisite poetic collection,

We want to share her poems with you, and hope they inspire you to embark on our 2022 NAPOWRIMO Challenge!

Inspired by 2021 LAPS NAPOWRIMO Challenge:

Poems Du Jour by CE Jordan

bloom 4/14/21

I am beginning to bloom

And what is commonly called

A late bloomer in my case is

So late I would say I am more a

Transplanted shrub, blooming

Being a strange and distant memory

So let us all be the perennial

Bloomers, the right on time bloomers

The erratic bloomers, the evergreen

Buds and shoots, and not worry

About keeping any schedule at all

As long as we can witness our very

Coming to life coming to terms coming

By it accidentally or just coming to it

Graciously, as gracious as an old dog

succulent 4/15/21

If a meal is not succulent then it is dry

And unless you are traversing the South

West or trying for the perfect tan I do not

Think one strives for this state of mealiness

So why not juicy succulence, the great family

Of totally inedible plants called succulents?

Airy, blue and grey with their fiesta blooms loaded

With liquid, not cactus the canteen of the desert

But the houseplant cousin of Carmen Miranda’s

hyperactive hibiscus and headdress of fruit

I myself prefer the succulent salsa beat of the

Ricky and Lucy easy care echeverias and aloes

Bleeding sticky liquid and begging for more

typing 4/16/21

8th grade was when I learned to type

Yes on a typewriter and they call it word

Processing now, done on what is called

A laptop, see it is easy so easy that my mate

Who never learned to type can still do it with

Only two fingers so how did he type his papers?

I used my quick typing mom to finish my papers

In high school for me a bad night one night at

My dad’s job where the fastest typewriters

Lived it was better when I left home to pound away

On my own electric job, oh how did we do it before

All the endless keyboard shortcuts! I am back in

The 8th grade in a huge room with girls in full skirts

And straight skirts, knobby knees bent and fingers and

Thumbs pounding away to beat the quick brown fox

erasure 4/17/21

1

With respect to typing we correct the heck out of the

Outcome of flying fingers on soft pads these days

But reminiscing about mistakes let’s reflect on erasers

And white out and correcting tape and thank our lucky

Stars for tech advances! now my mom toughed it out on

Her Selectric when she wrote novels and their many

Revisions, many, all with the inconvenient paint and tape

Oh when she got a computer it was a no go, not even

Willing to lift her flying fingers from her rough keys, but

Then all her words were safely on paper, oh the days!

2

Things that get erased:

some of our feelings

certain memories

whole paragraphs with the slip of a tip of a finger

good recipes

bad events

wrinkles because we really are growing younger

rabid 4/18/21

Bitten by the bug dog raccoon

Taken by the swath of moon

Eaten by the mug of a swoon